the tone of this post might be somewhat influenced by at swim-two-birds, a book I started for the 3rd time last week and finished for the 1st time last night. I'm liable to write in a manner similar to the way in which what I'm reading is written, fair warning.
spent christmas day, and days preceding/proceeding that occasion, with mother's sibling(s) in victoria, or alternately nanaimo, british columbia. following are aspects of the subsequent travel to portland which I consider noteworthy, listed in roughly chronological order.
- the seagull that hitched a ride on the deck railing of the ferry I boarded to cross the waters between victoria, b.c. and port angeles, washington. it swooped elegantly onboard moments after a crew member blew thrice the fog horn, signaling our departure, and the bird remained a passenger till our docking in the u.s. I would like to think the gull has family in both places.
- my father declaring the names of restaurants and roadside rest stops as we passed them by, occasionally speaking with an intonation suggesting a mixture of interest in entering the premises and a knowledge that we will not.
- tree bark totally covered in green moss; trunk, branches, and all. the fungi being so much a part of the plant that one would be inclined to believe the combination was instead a single species, appearing this way since its childhood, only not as tall.
- fixing my gaze through the glass window onto growth in the forest a short distance from the road, my view interrupted at regular intervals by the straight trunks of trees closer to the car, as if the outdoors were an over-sized filmstrip moving too slowly to trick the mind into seeing motion from still images.
- regina spektor's sex sounds passing as song vocals, energized by the car stereo and engaged in an impressive attack against my defense of noise-cancelling headphones + cowon iaudio x5l + proem at volume 7.
- the transformation, during the darkness of the night, of our vehicle's interior into a fighter jet's cockpit, this being made possible by the likeness of backlit speedometer, rpm gauge, etc. to control panel instruments familiar to pilots. the headlights of oncoming traffic were, naturally, the bombardment of antiaircraft ballistics launched by the enemy, their brightest points giving away their precise locations at moments in time and allowing the autopilot computer to infer as much as necessary to dodge their curved trajectories.
in portland now. my real vacation starts on january 4th, when I am here alone.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Saturday, December 6, 2008
steps towards publishable technical paper
competition is fierce for placement in leading journals of science and engineering, such as Nature and IEEE Communications Magazine. inclusion in an issue of one of these publications earns the author(s) notoriety, prestige, and some measure of clout, which they can use to make sound legitimate outrageous claims that they might introduce while entertaining guests at a cocktail party.based on the issues of technical journals I've read and due to my total lack of motivation to ever write a technical paper, I've compiled a short list of tips for anyone interested in being published to consider. each tip is paired with an actual sample of published material exemplifying its use.1. Title - a good title is of paramount importance in ensuring that your paper is read at least once during the initial screening process. keep in mind that editors are flooded with more submissions in a year than all the trees on earth could produce paper for, which is a curious impossibility deserving of its own technical paper. the characteristics of a good title are counterintuitive and might strike you as being the opposite of what you would expect. the best titles keep the article's topic quite ambiguous and/or are collections of unlikely word combinations that find themselves linked thanks to multiple abstraction layers. your title should also feel a couple words too long when read, and should require more than one reading to appreciate all possible interpretations. 
2. Illustrations - I am not referring here to graphs or other figures supporting the text. I'm referring to illustrations used for the express purpose of drawing interest to your paper. while inclusion of bits of artwork throughout an article's length is a matter of author preference, simple illustrations on the title page are obligatory. editors themselves are most often responsible for this aspect of the paper, but I include this tip with the rationale that an author taking the illustration responsibility upon themselves couldn't hurt their chances of being published. as to what should be depicted in the artwork, it should make only vague reference to your paper's topic. ideally, the appropriateness of your artwork will border on being darkly witty and uncomfortably nonsensical. for example, if your paper is a comparison between two modes of transmitting data, one mode faster than the other, your title page artwork might depict a rabbit and turtle in the desert on an interstate highway void of cars.the use of simple artwork communicates to the reader that the article is strong enough to stand on its own without depending on fancy artwork to justify its being published. rather than submit text only, which might suggest you are unaware that artwork can be used to counteract a lack of substance, text plus simple artwork is the equivalent of saying "yeah, I'm aware some people try to increase their odds by including fancy title page graphics, but as you can see, my article doesn't need that assistance."a rule of thumb regarding the complexity of the illustrations is that they should be no more graphically intricate than the entries in the clip art library of microsoft powerpoint. one popular choice is to pick a rendition of a 3D object that is drawn in such a way that no attempt has been made to create the illusion of depth.
3. Flaunt your foreignness - your analytical genious [sic] will be evidenced by the inclusion of choice grammatical errors only a non-native english speaker could make. while most people deplore the use of stereotypes, few are able to make judgments totally independent of them. when your objective is publication in a technical journal, it's obvious how taking advantage of this handout could be your catalyst. another angle of argument: dedicated and publish-worthy researchers don't have time for petty language considerations when all their work is governed by mathematics. 
2. Illustrations - I am not referring here to graphs or other figures supporting the text. I'm referring to illustrations used for the express purpose of drawing interest to your paper. while inclusion of bits of artwork throughout an article's length is a matter of author preference, simple illustrations on the title page are obligatory. editors themselves are most often responsible for this aspect of the paper, but I include this tip with the rationale that an author taking the illustration responsibility upon themselves couldn't hurt their chances of being published. as to what should be depicted in the artwork, it should make only vague reference to your paper's topic. ideally, the appropriateness of your artwork will border on being darkly witty and uncomfortably nonsensical. for example, if your paper is a comparison between two modes of transmitting data, one mode faster than the other, your title page artwork might depict a rabbit and turtle in the desert on an interstate highway void of cars.the use of simple artwork communicates to the reader that the article is strong enough to stand on its own without depending on fancy artwork to justify its being published. rather than submit text only, which might suggest you are unaware that artwork can be used to counteract a lack of substance, text plus simple artwork is the equivalent of saying "yeah, I'm aware some people try to increase their odds by including fancy title page graphics, but as you can see, my article doesn't need that assistance."a rule of thumb regarding the complexity of the illustrations is that they should be no more graphically intricate than the entries in the clip art library of microsoft powerpoint. one popular choice is to pick a rendition of a 3D object that is drawn in such a way that no attempt has been made to create the illusion of depth.3. Flaunt your foreignness - your analytical genious [sic] will be evidenced by the inclusion of choice grammatical errors only a non-native english speaker could make. while most people deplore the use of stereotypes, few are able to make judgments totally independent of them. when your objective is publication in a technical journal, it's obvious how taking advantage of this handout could be your catalyst. another angle of argument: dedicated and publish-worthy researchers don't have time for petty language considerations when all their work is governed by mathematics.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
